The Kankuamo people as guardians of the Sierra Nevada

Jaime Enrique Arias, governor of the Kankuamo people for more than 25 years, explains: “Our creator parents left us a mission, which was to care for the elements that are the foundation of life and give it permanence. These are the elements of the territory found in the earth: plants, animals, water, air, fire, ourselves.”

Undoubtedly, this mission has not been simple, considering the challenges they have faced over time. They have survived both the physical war, which snatched them from their ancestral land and forced them to be displaced; and the identity war, in which they lost their language and saw their own knowledge decimated. Both facts were officially recognized by the Constitutional Court, which in its Order 004 of 2009, included them among the indigenous peoples at risk of physical and cultural extermination.

Jaime Luis Arias

Indigenous Justice and Biocultural Rights

According to the cosmology of the four peoples, the Black Line or Seshizha is the place assigned for the protection, care, and conservation of the world. It is the earthly representation of the cosmos that is delimited by a circumferential perimeter and is tied by invisible threads that interconnect with each other and lead to the center of the Sierra de Gonawindúa.

Seshizha is the jurisdiction of the four peoples and is made up of geographical points that contribute to the harmony of the territorial order, interconnecting the physical with the spiritual. Internally, it is the territory of the ancestors or the so-called older siblings, and externally, it is the space that welcomes all apprentices or younger siblings.

In the Kankuama Law of Origin, the set of principles that order the world of nature and culture, there must be proper management of the territory. For this work, and by ancestral mandate, their authorities have the responsibility of ensuring that human actions that destabilize social balance are counteracted through “pagamentos” (payments) at the sacred sites of Seshizha. It is a ritual economy of offerings to the mothers and fathers of the world to promote justice among humans, non-humans, and spirits.

Thus, when the interconnection between the sacred points of this space is not kept active, the heart of the world is left unprotected. This situation not only represents a serious affront to the cultural practices of the Kankuamos but also a violation of their fundamental rights. The ancestral notion of the Kankuamo territory is socially and ecologically complex, since in the daily connection that their communities establish with the human and non-human dimensions of their habitat, realities that produce particular visions of the world are at stake.

In this way, Seshizha is more than the territorial space shared by the four peoples: it is the ecological, spiritual, and social environment that encompasses their cosmology. There, the relationship with the material and immaterial world and with those who live beyond its coordinates is defined.

“In this multiculturalism that exists, the government must understand that we have to participate under our uses and traditional direction, which is different but does not clash with what is outside,” says Mayor Isaac Gutiérrez, Coordinator of Justice of the Kankuamo people, and who has led the formulation of the inter-jurisdictional coordination protocol with the support of Dejusticia.

In the Kankuamo people’s search to strengthen their identity and self-government, both their own justice and the relationship with state entities are being woven, for example, with the Ministry of the Interior, the Attorney General’s Office, and Family Welfare. It is a commitment that is presented as a reference for other indigenous peoples who seek to strengthen their rights and intercultural dialogue.

An Intercultural Government Designed for Kankuama Unity

The mamos (grandfather/sun) and sagas (grandmother/moon) of the Sierra Nevada thought about the rebirth of the Kankuamo people and sought it, because for them “the Sierra Nevada is like a table with four legs, and it was missing one.” From these thoughts and efforts, the first Kankuamo Congress was born in 1993, which had as its objectives the strengthening of culture and territorial consolidation for the preservation of the sacred mountain. This objective was fulfilled in 2003 with the constitution of the Kankuamo Reservation with an approximate area of 25 thousand hectares.

In 2018, after having maintained a fluid dialogue with the government of Juan Manuel Santos, the four peoples achieved the issuance of Decree 1500 which redefined the ancestral territory of the Sierra Nevada, expressed in the system of sacred spaces of the Black Line, as a traditional environment of special protection, spiritual, cultural, and environmental value, in accordance with the principles of the Law of Origin.

“There is a very important exercise that we have proposed and that is to be able to govern in unity, as a principle that underlies the a priori of the indigenous peoples,” says Jaime Luis Arias, current governor of the Kankuamo people, as a key to his government.

This exercise is not individual, he insists, but involves the families, communities, and government structures of the peoples who inhabit the Sierra Nevada. “In some way, cultural imposition and colonialism have led us to individualism and to see things differently from what the ancestors have taught us, which is to care for and live in brotherhood and collectivity.”

Today, the Kankuamo government is intercultural and is based on both its law of origin and the human rights norms that recognize the self-determination of indigenous peoples. In this context, the mamos, sagas, and the Council of Elders teach that the spiritual order is the basis of their own law, which, in turn, strengthens their political bodies represented by the Governor and the Cabildos of the fifteen communities that make up the reservation.

Women are also part of the government through the Commission of Kankuama Women and Families. Their tasks include strengthening the political, economic, and legal components; and at the same time, psychosocial assistance and strengthening the artistic component, such as weaving, which generates income for women.

After being on the verge of physical and cultural extermination, the Kankuamo people now have a population of 35,000 people who self-identify as Kankuamo and the survival of their life mission is stronger than ever: to be the wall that must preserve the territory of the Sierra Nevada de Gonawindúa.

“You have to be like the sun,” Luis Fernando Arias, Kankuamo leader and Senior Counselor of the National Indigenous Organization of Colombia, used to say, “you have to shine for everyone.”

And it is for everyone, older and younger siblings, that the efforts of the Kankuamo government shine in favor of the life of the planet and the heart of the world.

(*) Deputy Director of Dejusticia and professor at Javeriana University

(**) Wayuu writer and activist

This article is part of the special #TejidoVivo, a product of a journalistic alliance between Dejusticia and El Espectador.